--- Begin Message ---_______ ____ ______ / |/ / /___/ / /_ // M I D - E A S T R E A L I T I E S / /|_/ / /_/_ / /\\ Making Sense of the Middle East /_/ /_/ /___/ /_/ \\ http://www.MiddleEast.Org News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know! PLEASE, TELL YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ABOUT MER YOU CERTAINLY CAN'T DEPEND ON CNN! =========================== To receive MER regularly with our compliments: http://www.MiddleEast.Org/subscribe ===========================WAR IN SUB-CONTINENT LOOMING BUSH II PREDICTS 2002 A "WAR YEAR" Stage Set for "Transferring" Palestinians and "Jordan is Palestine" MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 12/22/2001: If major wars and more "terrorist incidents" break out in the Sub-Continent and elsewhere in the Middle East region, as now seems likely in the weeks and months immediately ahead, that is just what Ariel Sharon and the "right-wing" Israelis -- with at least acquiescence from Barak, Peres and the so-called "left-wing" Israelis -- have been waiting for. It is then the Israelis are likely to manipulate events further so that they can follow through on Sharon's personal life-long ambition to vanquish the Palestinians, and in the process turn the TransJordan of British-making into the Palestine of Israeli-making. Sharon's plans are amazingly quite advanced at this point with a majority of Israelis now favoring the modern-day euphemisms for his core policies of Revionist Zionism - "transfer", "separation", "no choice". True, the Labor Zionists prepared the way for all this, and though some of their leaders like Peres and Beilin will cry crocodile tears it is really their own policies over a long period of time that have brought about the current looming historic moment of decision, with none other than General Sharon, long-time friend of former Generals Rabin and Barak, now at the helm. Meanwhile, as Washington insiders continue to worry about the possibility of small nuke devices that could even be positioned in the city or elsewhere in the U.S. -- explaining the extraordinary precautions which keep VP Cheney usually out of Washington at a distant "secure" location -- the sparks of war seem everywhere now, and even a world conflagration could be ahead in the new year. President Bush II has in fact just publicly predicted that 2002 will be a "War Year" -- possibly hoping to influence TIME Magazine's weekend selection of the "Man of the Year" from Osama Bin Laden to himself -- even as the American military prepares to unleash the new "Thermobaric Bomb" and assault a still growing list of Muslim countries, even including Pakistan. For the first time in 30 years India has just "recalled" its Ambassador to Pakistan, sealed the borders, and is preparing to strike. One way or another the goal will be -- in alliance with both Israel and the U.S. no matter what is said in public -- to somehow find a way to "disarm" Pakistan, at least from its couple of dozen "weapons of mass destruction", just as was done to Iraq. It is in this possibly now looming blazing world at war that the Israelis may seize the moment they have been waiting for, and "solve" the "Palestinian problem" in a hail of blood and destruction. INDIA AND PAKISTAN ON THE BRINK OF WAR By Coomi Kapoor in Delphi and Zahid Hussain in Islamabad [The Times, London, 22 December] INDIA and Pakistan moved closer to a state of war yesterday, as Delhi recalled its envoy from Islamabad and sealed border crossings and both sides deployed thousands of reinforcements along their frontier. The sabre-rattling raised fears around the world that the two nuclear powers were on the brink of a new round of bloodshed, which would undermine the international coalition�s war against terror in the region. India began the escalation when it withdrew Vijay Nambiar, its High Commissioner in Islamabad. The move is more than a symbolic diplomatic protest. Only twice before, in 1965 and again in 1971, has Delhi recalled its envoy. On each occasion the two countries were at war shortly afterwards. The action followed growing demands across the political spectrum in India for the Army to attack two militant Islamic groups that are based across the border in Pakistan and accused of carrying out the attack last week on the Indian Parliament that left 14 dead, including the five assailants. India and Pakistan last clashed in 1999 in a mountain battle at Kargil in the disputed Kashmir province. Hundreds of Indian and Pakistani troops were killed. This time the stakes are even higher. In addition to reinforcements along the Line of Control, which separates the two sides in Kashmir, tanks, artillery and infantry have also been deployed along the normally peaceful Rajasthan-Sind border. Yesterday�s escalation began when India launched a verbal assault against its historic rival, accusing Pakistan of �sponsoring last week�s suicide attack on the Indian Parliament�. Pakistan hit back by charging the Indians with provocation and warning Delhi that it would defend itself if attacked. The threats and counter- threats caused alarm in Washington and London, which are preoccupied with trying to complete their operations against terrorist suspects in Afghanistan and instal a new government in Kabul. To achieve that they need stability in the region and the help of President Musharraf of Pakistan. Western sources said that they feared that the Pakistani leader was not able to control elements of his military and intelligence services, who were deliberately encouraging extremist groups in the hope of provoking a clash with India. Western officials privately appealed to India to show restraint, but the Government in Delhi was under mounting public pressure to respond decisively. In addition to recalling its envoy, India cut road and rail links, including the DelhiLahore bus service, which was opened only two years ago as part of a peace drive between the two neighbours. The Indian authorities alleged that the five gunmen involved in last week�s gun and grenade attack were members of Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad, two Kashmiri rebel groups based in Pakistan. Indian investigators claim that the conspiracy to storm Parliament House in Delhi was hatched in Pakistan and that the cellphone records of the dead assailants and the confessions of those arrested for abetting them establish Pakistan�s involvement. On Thursday the Indian Government produced one of the accused, an Indian named Kashmiri Mohammed Afzal, before the media. He said that the suicide squad was from Pakistan and that he was the link man between them and Jaish-e-Muhammad. The Indian Government is upset by what it considers the US�s refusal to accept the evidence of Pakistan�s role in continuing to foment terrorism in India and believes that the US is deliberately turning a blind eye because it does not want General Musharraf to be destabilised. Pakistan has rejected India�s accusations that its intelligence service supported the attack and said that it would take no action until India supplied proof. India on Thursday rejected a US request to share its evidence with Pakistan so that General Musharraf could crack down on the militants. Most defence observers agree that the situation in the region is the most serious since May 1999 when Pakistan�s military intrusion in Kashmir brought the two nations close to a full war. The danger was averted when Pakistan pulled out its troops from Kashmir�s Kargil mountain post under US pressure. BUSH PREDICTS 'WAR YEAR' IN 2002 By Peter Graff and Charles Aldinger KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters - 21 December) - A provisional government on which the world has pegged its hopes for a peaceful Afghanistan prepared on Friday to take power, but U.S. President George. W. Bush warned that 2002 would still be a ``war year.'' A disputed U.S. attack on a convoy of suspected Taliban or al Qaeda leaders marred the run-up to a ceremony on Saturday that would mark the first orderly transition of power in two decades in the central Asian nation. Pashtun tribal chieftain Hamid Karzai was to be sworn in as leader of a government molded by the United Nations and charged with rebuilding the war-shattered nation whose ousted Taliban rulers sheltered Osama bin Laden and his fighters as they allegedly plotted the Sept. 11 attacks on America that killed nearly 3,300 people. Some 75 British Royal Marines, the vanguard of an international peacekeeping force expected to swell to at least 1,500, touched down in Kabul while the United States stepped up its hunt for bin Laden in the cave-riddled mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said U.S. forces had begun searching al Qaeda caves and tunnels and that more troops would be sent to press the hunt, as Washington left the ''nation-building'' mission to its European and Muslim allies. The Pentagon also rushed into battle a new bomb designed to kill people in caves and tunnels with a higher-energy blast than standard explosives. CONVOY BOMBED U.S. defense officials announced AC-130 gunships and Navy fighters had attacked and destroyed a convoy in Afghanistan believed to be carrying ``leadership'' of the Taliban or al Qaeda. But reports from the region said the convoy instead comprised Afghan tribal elders on their way to Kabul to attend the inauguration of the interim government, killing about 65 people -- something the Pentagon rejected. ``There is no doubt in their (U.S. military's Central Command) mind that they hit what they wanted to hit and that it was the bad guys,'' Marine Lt. Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told Reuters. Bush, in an interview with reporters in Washington, said great progress had been made in his ``war on terrorism'' but warned that peace was not at hand. ``Next year will be a war year as well because we're going to continue to hunt down these al Qaeda people in this particular theater, as well as other places,'' he said. Bush said the United States would be willing to send U.S. special forces or logistical support to countries that ask for help. Washington has identified more than 60 countries with al Qaeda cells in them in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. ``Our war against terror extends way beyond Afghanistan. And at some point in time maybe some president will come and say you have the expertise that we don't, would you mind maybe have some of your troops with ours. And the answer is, 'you bet,''' Bush said. ON TO IRAQ? A majority of Americans support extending the military campaign to Iraq, according to the latest opinion poll. Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that military success in Afghanistan did not guarantee a similar result in Iraq, proposed by Washington's hawks as the next target in the war on terrorism. ``They are so significantly different that you can't take the Afghan model and immediately apply it to Iraq,'' he said. Bush admitted that the whereabouts of bin Laden was unknown, but repeated his promise the wealthy Saudi-born militant would be caught. ``I haven't heard much from him recently, which means he could be in a cave that doesn't have an opening to it anymore, or could be in a cave where he can get out, or may have tried to slither out into neighboring Pakistan. We don't know. But I will tell you this: We're going to find him,'' Bush said. Pakistani security forces were holding hundreds of prisoners captured fleeing Afghanistan. After a mass escape of al Qaeda fighters, they searched cars and checked women wearing the all-enveloping burqa in case they were male fugitives in disguise. Bin Laden ally Mullah Mohammad Omar, the reclusive head of the ousted Taliban movement, also has eluded capture and was said by a former Taliban minister to be safe at an unknown location in Afghanistan. Mullah Abdul Shakour, ex-minister of communications and reconstruction, said all the Taliban leaders were safe, and threatened retaliation against any country that extradited members of the Taliban leadership to the United States. PROVISIONAL RULERS TO BE SWORN IN The Taliban, whose five-year hold on power crumbled quickly under assault from the United States and the Afghan opposition group Northern Alliance, was to be replaced on Saturday by a 30-member government formed under United Nations guidance during meetings in Bonn, Germany last month. It will rule for six months while a Loya Jirga, or traditional assembly of elders, forms another government to run the fractured country until elections two years later. The new government's task will be difficult. The World Bank and United Nations said in a report unveiled in Brussels that Afghanistan will need $9 billion in aid over the next five years to rebuild after two decades of war. The United States appeared ready to help, saying it would immediately recognize the new government. U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins told reporters in Kabul he had delivered a message of support from President Bush to Afghan leader designate Karzai. The prospect of a new era in Afghanistan was dampened by the renewal of old hostilities between neighboring Pakistan and India. India said it was recalling its envoy to Pakistan for what it termed Islamabad's failure to act against terrorism following an attack on the Indian parliament last week. There were big troop movements close to the border between the two nuclear rivals. BUSH URGES PAKISTAN CRACKDOWN Bush joined India in urging Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf to crack down on Pakistan-based militants blamed in the attack in which 14 people died. ``As President Musharraf does so, he will have our full support,'' Bush said in statement. The shock waves from the Sept. 11 attacks continued to reverberate around the world. Somali police arrested four Iraqi Kurds and a Palestinian for questioning over possible links to al Qaeda network or other extremist groups. Somalia has been talked of as a possible new target of the ``war on terror,'' and has come under strong U.S. pressure to act against militants. Yemen's President, Ali Abdullah Saleh, ordered his forces to use an ``iron fist'' in the hunt for bin Laden supporters after 22 people died in a battle with suspected al Qaeda militants. Chinese police arrested nine Muslims for ``illegal preaching'' in China's restive western province Xinjiang, which borders Afghanistan, saying the roundup was part of a campaign against ``separatists, terrorists and religious extremists.'' Iran said it opposed the deployment of foreign forces in neighboring Afghanistan. Conservatives in Tehran accused the United States of being ``drunk with superficial victory in Afghanistan'' after the U.S. navy intercepted an oil tanker carrying Iranian fuel in the Gulf. The U.S. Justice Department said it had nearly completed questioning 5,000 foreign men in the United States in a controversial attempt to find out more about militant activities. It said it had generated leads useful in the nation's anti-terrorism campaign. New York City firefighters and police met troops of the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division at an air base north of Kabul and buried a piece of the World Trade Center in honor of comrades who died in the September 11 attacks. NEW THERMOBARIC BOMB A POWERFUL ADDITION TO U.S. ARSENAL IN AFGHANISTAN [Agence France-Presse - 22 December 2001] The US military is about to use a powerful new weapon in the ongoing war in Afghanistan, a "thermobaric" bomb which can suck oxygen out of the cavernous hideouts where Osama bin Laden and remnants of his al-Qaeda terror network may be holed up. The laser-guided weapons contain an explosive that can penetrate deep into caves, as the hunt for bin Laden enters a new, more perilous stage, top Pentagon officials said Friday. Officials said 10 of the newly designed bombs were being shipped to Afghanistan after a successful test last week in Nevada. Each thermobaric bomb -- also called fuel-air explosives -- contains two explosive devices and a highly flammable chemical that sends a deadly shock wave through enclosed spaces such as caves and tunnels without collapsing them. The weapons consist of a container of fuel and two explosive charges. When the first charge detonates, the fuel is dispersed. A second charge then detonates the billowing cloud of fuel. Experts say such bombs tend to be far more powerful than conventional high explosives, and are more likely to kill or injure people hiding in caves, bunkers and similar shelters because they can suck the air out of such places. Earlier versions of thermobaric bombs were used in Vietnam by the United States and in Chechnya by Russia. The new version, called the BLU-1186, was developed specifically for use in the war against terrorism, officials here said. -------------------------- MiD-EasT RealitieS - http://www.MiddleEast.Org Phone: (202) 362-5266 Fax: (815) 366-0800 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe to MER with our compliments email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject SUBSCRIBE To unsubscribe email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject UNSUBSCRIBE--- End Message ---
